


The fascination with the slavery tag

by ItStartedWithPotter



Category: Original Work
Genre: Essays, Gen, Master/Slave, Other, discussion about slavery, mention of 2770 AUC, mention of Ai no Kusabi, mention of Every Other Midnight, mention of Harry Potter, mention of Slave Breakers, non-fictional writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24461677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItStartedWithPotter/pseuds/ItStartedWithPotter
Summary: This is a piece of non-fictional writing talking about various concepts and themes depicted in the slavery trope. Be mindful of what you read as it could be triggering to some people.
Comments: 42
Kudos: 10





	The fascination with the slavery tag

I once told Mossgreen, author of the delightful Roman AU slave series 2770 Ab Urbe condita, that I would one day write an essay on the slavery tag within fanfic and original writing. Well it happened finally. It’s lockdown, everyone is starting to get restless and yet the fanfic and writing platforms globally are booming. I guess, we’re all itching to write and read more since there is little else we all can do.

This is such a massive undertaking. How does one go about writing on such a large and diverse genre? The best place to start, I suppose, would be the beginning. And for me, as my username suggests, it started with Potter.  
Before I go any further, I want to let you know what to expect from the rest of this essay. I’m going to discuss the following:  
1\. Slave fics in the fanfic world  
2\. Slave fics in the original world

What I’m not going to discuss is blatant non-con and fics that revolve and depict only rape or any BDSM etiquette. The reason for this is because non-con doesn’t have to be slave focussed. Rape in principle happens to all slaves used sexually but in itself, rape fics are not the same category as slave fics. Finally, BDSM (Bondage-discipline-domination-submission and sado-masochism) is a consensual activity between two or more adults. Since we have already established that slaves cannot give consent (due to the very nature of them being property), they cannot partake in BDSM activity. Obviously, slave role-play is different. That’s consensually acting out a fantasy but the characters and stories I want to discuss are those where slavery is legally accepted and therefore isn’t fantasy. Although it does lend the question: if a slave asks his master to spank him and the master spanks the slave, was that consensual spanking? Blatantly going against the wishes of a slave is clear but it’s that grey area that fascinates me…

My first exposure to the above themes was through a fic called ‘every other midnight’. This was in the Potter world, written by Katherine’s Nom De Plume. Strictly speaking this wasn’t a slave fic but rather it exposed me to themes of ‘power games’, ‘abuse of power in teacher-student setting’ and also the concept of rebellion against the established norm. In this story, Lily Evans is a student at Hogwarts where James Potter is a teacher. The time is volatile and people of her background discriminated against and tagged as ‘lesser’ citizens. 

I loved this story as it was my first foray into such topics written not as starkly but rather explored through the stories and lives of these characters. 

Another really big influence in my reading and writing experience was MaculateGiraffe’s Slave Breakers series. I’ve read and re-read this story countless times. Because it pulled together so many concepts and wound it up in a beautiful tale which ultimately was about a group of people finding their place in the world and what they meant to each other. The overarching theme was of course that it was set in a world where rich men and women owned pleasure slaves. I found myself asking myself questions such as: what is freedom? If you love someone but they are ultimately toxic, is that love enough or should you get out of that relationship? At what cost do you rebel against the status quo? Are our rights, freedoms and privileges worth fighting for even if everything including our own livelihood is at stake? Can it ever be right to infringe people’s freedom? Even if by doing so you’re improving their quality of life, keeping them safe or allowing them to have access to more opportunities that they would have before. 

I then came across a novel called ‘Ai no Kusabi’. Actually I read the raunchy fanfictions first but then was enthralled at the beauty of the novel. Written in the 1980s, this Japanese tale depicts a human and an AI living in a dystopia future who fall in love but at a terrible cost. The AIs run the world and have humans as ‘pets’ This tale was both horrifying and intriguing in equal measures. It forced me to consider the fate of humanity. How fragile our ‘normal’ is. How easily it could be torn apart. And how reliant we are on each other, on the climate, on technology and on good health. Without these parameters and the conditions being just right, humanity would have ended before it even had a chance to flourish (in fact in history it has almost done that many times over). So are we not then slaves to ourselves and our limitations? How easy it would be for a more powerful entity or being to take over control, either by force, finance and resource or by controlling our minds. 

We live in such an artificially built society that we forget that freedom is just an illusion, a construct, that allows us to live in a semblance of perceived liberty within the constraints of our current environment. 

Indeed, we may be ‘free’ to do certain things but we never would due to the consequence of doing them. Further, there are some things that we have every legal right to do but wouldn’t as to respect the culture we belong in. For example, you wouldn’t go into the cinema and start shouting. You are legally allowed to but there’s a norm that stops you from doing so.  
Finally there are somethings that we have the intellectual ability to do but just cannot, physically. However hard we try, we just cannot see through the door. Yet, if there is someone knocking on said door, and they’re talking to you and they tell you they are your next door neighbour ‘Sally’, you have a visual construct of what she must look like on the other side of the door but you’ll never be able to see it. That’s the physical limitation of your own body that keeps you within check and stops you from being able to do ‘anything’.

Anyway, these thoughts are but a few that cross my mind when I read these stories because fundamentally all these characters are living in a psychological heaven where every bit of their life can be analysed.

Ultimately, they’re fun to read and as fantasy goes, I can see why it’s appealing. On the surface of it, if you have a kind, loving master who for most parts leaves you alone, educates you, looks after you and helps you be yourself, it isn’t too different to having a parent. With the important difference that parents don’t own their offspring and children have rights that most of the slave characters in our stories do not. 

Rights that in today’s world are essentially the free pass we need in life. Human rights as we call them are an internationally agreed set of rules that everyone obeys and is entitled to have. It’s these rights we take for granted almost every day and suddenly when they get threatened, we experience a helplessness beyond ourselves. 

And that’s basically why slavery, though at best is benign and at worst, a horrifying mess of violation of human rights, is never in practice correct. 

Still. Some people crave the freedom that comes with not having to worry about school/ work/ kids/ money problems and if all you have to do is what your master tells you, you can see why slave fic can be romanticised and seem idyllic. And they are. Heck, that’s why I read them! It’s a form of escapism, absolutely, and also a form of entertainment. 

And often I’m not even reading to see how the slave leads a revolution, I just want to read some traditional master-slave action. Someone once said to me that by reading it, am I agreeing to it? And to which I replied: reading, writing or consuming any content is not the issue. It’s what you do with it and how it influences you. If something triggers us, it’s in our interest to stop reading it. But if a controversial story makes one, two or many people question themselves, the story or even society then that dialogue is precious and should be encouraged. 

My three parting questions:  
1) What are some of your favourite slave fics?  
2) Why do you think the slavery trope is popular in fiction?  
3) Can slavery ever be justified in an alternate universe?

**Author's Note:**

> Special mentions (in order of first read)
> 
> Mossgreen - author of 2770 Ab urbe condita  
> Kathryn's NomDePlume - author of Every Other Midnight  
> MaculateGiraffe - author of The Slave Breakers  
> Reiko Yoshihara - author of Ai No Kusabi 
> 
> Special mention to JP Kenwood's Dominus/ Rome series, without which I honestly wouldn't have read up on the Roman Empire and their various practices as I did. 
> 
> I'd like to know your thoughts too!


End file.
